Profiles of graduate students in international political economy on the 2021 job market can be found here.

Siyao Li


Bio

I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. I was also a GPEP predoctoral fellow at Georgetown University’s Mortara Center for International Studies for the 2020-2021 academic year. My research focuses on the politics of foreign direct investment and trade, and business-government relations. My dissertation book project investigates why and how foreign direct investment into weak institutional environments achieve property protection through host government institutions, especially in terms of technology assets. The paper version of my dissertation is a finalist for the GWU-CIBER Best Paper on Emerging Markets Award.

Noah Zucker


Bio

Noah is a PhD candidate in political science at Columbia University, specializing in international and comparative political economy. His primary research agenda considers how climate politics interact with the social divisions endemic to many of the world’s most fossil fuel-intensive and ecologically vulnerable countries. He studies global climate governance and the broader themes of economic governance and identity in other work. His research is published in the Journal of Politics and has received APSA’s McGillivray Award for Best Paper in Political Economy, Sage Paper Prize for Best Paper in Comparative Politics, and Award for Best Paper on Democracy and Autocracy.

Nina Obermeier


Bio

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Government at Cornell University. My research lies at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations. It examines how attitudes towards international affairs shape and are shaped by processes of political contestation at the domestic level. In my dissertation project, I explore how populist radical right parties can unintentionally drive support for international economic integration among Western European publics when they engage in extremist rhetoric. I use a wide range of methods in my research, including machine learning, quantitative text analysis, survey experiments, elite interviews, and quasi-experimental research designs.

Lorenzo Crippa


Bio

I am a PhD student from the Department of Government at the University of Essex (UK). I am interested in the construction, enforcement and effects of state-based and international institutions that regulate multinational firms.
In my PhD thesis I focus on the multilateral cooperation to regulate corporate foreign bribery. I seek to explain variations in state capacity to hold corporations accountable for exporting corruption abroad. I approach my study employing quantitative methods, and bringing together insights from the literature on international institutions and on political-economic determinants of firms’ behaviors.

Acyan Katitas


Bio

I’m Aycan (pronounced I-John) and I’m a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance during the 2021-2022 academic year. I have received my PhD from the University of Virginia’s Department of Politics in Spring 2021. My specialty is international political economy and my research focuses on elite priming of opposition to international trade and foreign direct investment. Prior to UVA, I received my MA in European Interdisciplinary Studies from College of Europe (Poland) and my BA in Political Science and International Relations and Business Administration from Bogazici University (Turkey).

Calvin Thrall


Bio

Calvin Thrall is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government at The University of Texas at Austin. He studies the politics of coercion, cooperation, and collusion between public and private actors; topics of particular interest include international economic law, taxation, public-private governance, and diplomacy. His work has been published in International Organization, The Review of International Organizations, Business and Politics, and AEA: Papers and Proceedings. His job market paper,‘Spillover Effects in International Law: Evidence from Tax Planning,’ received the David A. Lake Award for best paper presented at IPES 2020.

Aidan Milliff


Bio

Aidan is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2021-2022, he is a USIP-Minerva Peace and Security Scholar, and a predoctoral fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University. His research combines computational social science methods and qualitative tools to answer questions about the cognitive, emotional, and social forces that shape political violence, migration, and the politics of South Asia.
Before MIT, Aidan was a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was born and raised in Colorado.

Alexander Kirss


Bio

Alex is a PhD Candidate in the political science department at George Washington University, where he is concentrating in international relations and research methods. His research sits at the intersection of international political economy and security studies and investigates how businesses are affected by, respond to, and shape large scale international shocks such as interstate war, geopolitical competition, and pandemics.

Jacque Gao


Bio

I am a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Rochester. My specializations are formal political theory, comparative political economy (CPE), and international political economy (IPE). I am particularly interested in understanding how a dictator’s survival strategies interact with the changing international environment. My research has been accepted for publication in International Organization, The Review of International Organizations, and Social Choice and Welfare.